Emergence Magazine Podcast

Struggling to explain her belief in God to her atheist husband, award-winning Palestinian American poet Hala Alyan reflects on her Muslim faith as inextricably linked to her family, to Palestine, and to histories of erasure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Struck by the thought that the Catholic Church and the natural world have traded places as sources of transcendence, Paul Elie wonders how religion and the natural world might come together for shared renewal. Paul is the author of the award-winning book, “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this narrated essay, writer and poet Lia Purpura delves into the horrified wonder and holiness of death, exploring burial practices that are intended to nourish the earth, as it has nourished us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The roots of religious belief and the sacredness of nature were once closely entwined: the ancient yew grows in the churchyard; the forest monks of Thailand follow the Buddha’s example of meditating beneath trees. Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder profiles theologian Martin Palmer and his work to engage faith-based communities in recovering narratives of love and care for local ecologies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a world where the cosmologies of black women are continually erased and excluded from knowledge traditions, Kinitra Brooks seeks connection with her late great-grandmother, Mama Myrt, who first introduced her to rootworking traditions and inspired her life’s work. Kinitra’s essay, "Myrtle’s Medicine," reflects on the meaning and beauty of embodied ways of knowing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the summer of 1968, Christian mystic Thomas Merton undertook a pilgrimage to the American West. Fifty years later, writer Fred Bahnson set out to follow Merton’s path, retracing the monk’s journey across the landscape. This narrated essay offers an intimate meditation on Merton’s life and the relevance of the spiritual journey today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this interview, writer Paul Kingsnorth discusses some of the central themes explored in his work. The conversation centers on the "myth of progress," the failure of technology to deliver the "good life," and how both have led us into the environmental crisis. He describes how old myths offer a way to be with the uncertainty embedded in our time, and how we can listen for new stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paul Kingsnorth is a writer living in rural Ireland. Recalling a visit from a dark figure in a dream, who reappeared in his novel "The Wake," Paul reflects on writing as an alchemical process, one involving transformation, discipline, and purification. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bayo Akomolafe is a writer and lecturer from western Nigeria. In the age of the Anthropocene and entrenched politics of whiteness, this essay brings us face-to-face with our own unresolved ancestry, as it becomes more and more apparent that we are completely entwined with each other and the natural world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a writer, scientist, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is author of the acclaimed book "Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants." In this essay, Robin reflects on the ancient technology embedded in our relationship with maize, recalling that a grinding stone, an irrigation system, and an ear of corn are also technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Abram is a cultural ecologist and philosopher. In this essay, he reflects on our undying urge to recreate a primal experience of intimacy with the surrounding world, offering notes on technology and animism in an age of ecological wipeout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this in-depth investigative story, Emergence Magazine staff writer Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder explores the collision of values unfolding on the summit of Mauna Kea, the proposed site for what would be the largest telescope in the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nick Hunt is a writer, journalist, storyteller, and self-described wind-walker. His latest book, "Where the Wild Winds Are," tells the story of four European winds and their effects on the landscape, people, and culture. In this essay Nick continues this exploration, focusing on the mythological understanding of winds as gods, experiencing their power firsthand as cause for awe, exhilaration, and fear. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This past August we had a chance to sit down and talk with Martin about the intelligence that lies at the heart of myths. The best stories, he says, ought to be trailed not trapped, and approached with discernment, an open heart, and an attuned ear. He began our conversation by telling the story of the Lindworm, an old Norwegian tale about a mythical creature that is part human and part snake. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this essay Kara visits a primordial, old-growth forest in Poland. Here she meets a herd of bison, encounters loggers and felled trees, tracks wolves, and observes how a healthy forest is in a constant cycle of death and rebirth. Upon returning to her home in the sheep-grazed moors of Wales, she asks how this example of regeneration can be healing, not just for the desolated Welsh landscape she wants to re-wild, but for herself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Craig Childs writes about adventure, wilderness, and science. His books include "Atlas of a Lost World," "Apocalyptic Planet," "Finders Keepers," and "The Animal Dialogues." In this essay Craig takes a solo canoe trip down the Green River, paddling through Canyonlands in southeast Utah, reflecting on what it means to be alone in the wild. Encountering risk, isolation, and joy, and entering into conversation with the land and waters around him, Craig explores what happens when we choose to be in solitude. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this essay Camille reflects on the journey of seeds, how much of what we plant in our gardens was brought to our soils during the slave trade, and the legacy of trauma and triumph that lies within our food. Planting food, she contends, even in contaminated soils, becomes both an acknowledgment of grief and a celebration of the beauty of growing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this narrated essay, cultural ecologist and philosopher David Abram questions the deep intelligence that lies at the heart of crane, butterfly, and salmon migration patterns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Beginning with W. B. Yeats's iconic poem, "The Second Coming," acclaimed writer Paul Kingsnorth narrates his essay "A Storm Blown from Paradise," an inquiry into linear and cyclical time and the sweeping momentum of progress. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Emergence Magazine staff writer Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder travels to the Great Plains of Nebraska and South Dakota, to speak with people who are restoring the native prairie and learning what it means to listen to the land. From an ancient inland sea, to the Homesteading Act of 1862, to the modern realities of industrial agriculture, Wild Fire, Flat Water explores the long history, and ongoing story, of this land. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices